The Datum Report

Occupation 5211 · Skilled trades occupations

Sheet metal workers

Half of full-time sheet metal workers in the UK earn more than £32,207 a year, and half earn less.

Sheet metal workers mark out, cut, shape and join sheet metal using hand or machine tools to make and repair sheet metal products and components (excluding vehicle bodywork).

How people enter it

Entrants typically possess GCSEs/S grades. Training is usually via apprenticeship including practical experience and technical training and relevant NVQs at level 2 and 3 are available.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to assess job requirements
• uses template, measuring instruments and tools to mark out layout lines and reference points
• uses hand or machine tools to bend, roll, fold, press or beat cut sheet metal
• assembles prepared parts and joins them by bolting, welding or soldering
• finishes product by grinding, filing, cleaning and polishing
• repairs damaged metal parts such as copper sheets and tubes by beating, riveting, soldering, welding and fitting replacement parts
• checks final product to ensure conformity with specifications

Also called

Coppersmith · Metal fabricator · Panel beater (metal trades) · Sheet metal fabricator · Sheet metal worker

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for sheet metal workers, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 6 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Metal plate workers, smiths, moulders and related occupations · Pipe fitters · Welding trades